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Thread: motherboard repair

  1. #1
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    Talking motherboard repair

    hello guys........

    For so long in my new job im always repairing motherboards, and it seems that it's always a leaky capacitor.........

    my question guys is this have you ever experienced reparing a motherboard and hunting the defective capacitor?

    In my experience its good to repair a motherbaord but sad to say it will only take for about 6 months. The most common boards that I have experience always having a laeky capacitor is this Epox, ECS, Intel, VIA this the most common of them. however, ASUS boards are really strange in 5 yrs. in hardware servicing only once I encountered that an Asus board will have a trouble with a bad capacitor... what do you think guys. Is Asus the best motherboard in the world?

    Im always trying to figure it out how the ASUS company manage to make a good quality boards?

    POST pls. thanks.. Im just thinking how the engineer's design the boards...

  2. #2
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    Ah, my first computer, a commodore had a leaky capacitor, which made me angry because that had access to those huge old B-Drive 5 inch disks... which have all sorts of old games and other vintage data from back in the day...

    I never fixed it, I couldn't find a replacement for it, nor did I have the experience at the age of 10 when I oppened it back up again to look at what was wrong with it. I wish I had saved that drive... Oh well, the hard drive is sitting in some box. Anyway, replacing it at that point would be useless, Windows 95 hit the market, computers were faster already (oh how is sounds weird calling those computers fast).

    So, in my case, it wasn't worth fixing.
    Hi.

  3. #3
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hello jin29_neci

    Please forgive me if I don't get this quite right, but I seem to recall that there was some sort of technology theft a while back, and the market got flooded with dodgy capacitors...........something to do with the electrolyte I believe?

    Yes, they generally bulge and/or leak.

    The answer to your question is very simple. If you have one defective capacitor then THEY ARE ALL DEFECTIVE..............they just haven't shown the symptoms yet. My answer to customer is "replace the whole lot, or replace the motherboard"..............otherwise, it is just like you say, six months and another one fails (you would be lucky with 6 months, more like 3 in my experience)

    If you are really interested, please let me know and I will try to find the links to the stolen technology story...............maybe if you printed it out and displayed it in your store it would help you with your customers?

    REMEMBER!....................if one has failed, you cannot trust any of them

  4. #4
    The Doctor Und3ertak3r's Avatar
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    I will BAckup nihil with his comments..

    From my own experience, when one fails your best to replace all those in a particular part of the circuit.
    Many of those that die are in a switching PSU on the mobo, either as part of the osc regu circuit, or the output filter.. the death of these electros was due to heating.. normaly internal due to the high switching frequencies and hi internal resistances at particular frequencies.. and also due to high local temps (yeh like most that I have seen are near the CPU)

    You dont just replace the one or two that bulge.. your best replacing the whole lot.

    I dont make a practice of repairing motherboards, I do do them from time to time to keep my hand in.. like I an doing a Cap replacement job on a CTV here at the moment.. dirt easy compared to a mobo.. rule of engagement is the same.. replace all in the hot areas.. and the neighbours/associates of any that bulge in the cool areas..
    "Consumer technology now exceeds the average persons ability to comprehend how to use it..give up hope of them being able to understand how it works." - Me http://www.cybercrypt.co.nr

  5. #5
    ********** |ceWriterguy
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    The answer to your question is very simple. If you have one defective capacitor then THEY ARE ALL DEFECTIVE.
    Concur wholeheartedly. Besides, in this day and age it's MUCH easier and cheaper to toss and replace than to attempt repairs, most especially on a motherboard. Motherboards are layered cards - meaning the circuits within them are different on each layer of the silicon comprising the board itself. Should you attempt to desolder/resolder a specific component, your chances of doing incidental damage to other circuits are extremely high. Toss it. Get a new one.

    Out of curiosity, your profile lists your work experience as 'small business' - do you own or work for a computer firm by chance? If so, and these are mobos your company is purchasing to place in your units, this is a CLEAR indicator your firm should find another source for them and pronto!

    [edit]You must spread your AntiPoints around before giving it to nihil again. Grrrrr. Guess there's no timer on these things - I greened you last what? Three months ago?[/edit]
    Even a broken watch is correct twice a day.

    Which coder said that nobody could outcode Microsoft in their own OS? Write a bit and make a fortune!

  6. #6
    HeadShot Master N1nja Cybr1d's Avatar
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    On some ABIT Motherboards it mentions something about "Japanese Capacitors"....maybe the Japs make the best capacitors?

  7. #7
    AFLAAACKKK!!
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    I have never had a problem with MSI mobo's... maybe they use those japanese capacitors cybrid was talking about .
    I am the uber duck!!1
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  8. #8
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    Originally posted here by nihil
    Hello jin29_neci

    Please forgive me if I don't get this quite right, but I seem to recall that there was some sort of technology theft a while back, and the market got flooded with dodgy capacitors...........something to do with the electrolyte I believe?



    If you are really interested, please let me know and I will try to find the links to the stolen technology story...............maybe if you printed it out and displayed it in your store it would help you with your customers
    thanks... im interested with the stolen technology stolen... could you give me some links... as you said so i can displayed it in my store.
    thnks

  9. #9
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Here you go my friend:

    http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY...eb03/ncap.html

    http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=195

    http://www.overclockers.com/tips1081/

    http://forums.viaarena.com/messagevi...&enterthread=y

    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=9423

    Just type "leaking capacitor" into Google search, and you will get loads of them. It was a pretty big scandal a couple of years back.

    It has nothing to do with you or your company, but I would personally install new motherboards, otherwise you really do need to replace ALL the capacitors, or you just move the problem down the line, which is why they fail in 3-6 months

    At least with a new MoBo you have a 12 month manufacturer's warranty....................if you repair a MoBo you are providing the warranty?


  10. #10
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    This site has some easy to understand information, and you can buy kits of caps to replace your bad ones with. http://www.badcaps.net/

    More than likely, if you're even reading this, you know what this site is about... Incase you don't, I'll enlighten you. This site was created to counter the bad capacitor problem that has been plaguing computer motherboards since about 1999 to the present day. It now being 2005, I am STILL seeing later model P4 and Athlon boards with this problem. The reason the capacitor problem exists in the first place is because of a large-scale industrial espionage foul-up. Some component manufacturers decided to steal an electrolyte formula from another competitor. Little be known to them, the stolen formula was incomplete and flawed. They didn't discover this until it was too late and they had manufactured and distributed literally MILLIONS of these flawed capacitors. Read more HERE.

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